Refugee Resettlement Program –Tenn. Files Constitutional Challenge

On Monday, March 13, 2017, Tennessee filed a federal lawsuit “challenging the federal refugee resettlement program for violating the state’s sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

Tennessee claims they withdrew from the federal program but is being forced to spend state funds anyway.

Let’s hope this lawsuit blows open wide what is being spent on settling “refugees” in our communities, as well as all the money spent on illegal aliens.

(Breitbart article) “In April 2016, the Tennessee General Assembly passed SJR 467 by overwhelming majorities authorizing the filing of a lawsuit to address the federal government’s commandeering of state funds to continue the refugee resettlement program in Tennessee. In 2007, the state of Tennessee officially withdrew from the federal program but the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement unilaterally designated Catholic Charities of Tennessee to force continued use of state funds to resettle refugees in the state.”

Under the Refugee Act of 1980, “The federal government is prohibited from forcing states to support federal programs with state revenues.” …..

“The Refugee Act specified that 100 percent of each state’s cost of Medicaid and cash welfare benefits provided to each resettled refugee during their first 36 months in the United State would be reimbursed to each state by the federal government. However, within five years of having created the federal program, Congress failed to appropriate sufficient funding and instead, costs of the federal program began shifting to state governments.”

“Within ten years of passing the Refugee Act, the federal government eliminated all reimbursement of state costs, a huge financial cost to the states that was, in effect, yet another unfunded federal mandate.”